Initial rumors that surfaced in late last night about Dan Henderson being injured and out of UFC 151 have now officially been confirmed to be true. what’s even worse is now UFC 151 is the first card in UFC history to ever be completely cancelled. That’s right the entire card every fight cancelled. Dana White held a last minute media conference call this afternoon at 2pm EST to announce the organization’s first ever total event cancellation and he started with an almost exhausted and dejected sigh as he revealed there would no longer be a UFC 151 Jones versus Henderson, or anyone else for that matter. As the call went on Dana’s emotions went from dejected and disappointed to downright livid and angry. He sounded disappointed about Hendo, praised Chael Sonnen and had harsh words for Jon Jones and Greg Jackson.
Here’s a breakdown of what the UFC president had to say about the the who what why and how this historic event cancellation went down:
-UFC 151 is completely cancelled. All tickets will be refunded through ticketmaster.
-Dan Henderson injured his knee (specifically an MCL tear) while training and pulled out of the event.
-Chael Sonnen offered to fly to Vegas tonight and take the fight with Jon Jones on 8 days notice.
-Jon Jones refused to fight Chael Sonnen on the advice of his mentor and coach Greg Jackson.
-Greg Jackson told Jon Jones that taking a fight with Chael Sonnen on 8 days notice would be ‘the biggest mistake of his career’
-UFC 152 will now be the new UFC 151.
-it is still unsure what will happen to all of the scheduled undercard bouts but they are going to try and fit them in elsewhere.
-Jon Jones will now be facing Lyoto Machida on September 22nd in Toronto.
Here’s some quotes from Dana during the call regarding Jones and Greg Jackson:
“Greg Jackson is a ****ing sport killer!”
“Jon Jones is the first champion to ever turned down a fight”
“I was never crazy about sponsoring [Jon Jones] in the first place.”
“Jon Jones has been one of those guys…as far as his relationship with us, Lorenzo and I are disgusted.”
“Good for you Jon Jones, you’re rich and have money but there’s alot of guys on this card that are trying to feed their family.”
“If I get a call that Jones doesn’t want to fight Machida, we’ll have another conference call today and it won’t be good.”
“Tito Ortiz was the hardest guy to to work with. But even Tito never turned down a fight.”
“Greg Jackson should never be interviewed by anyone else ever again except a ****ing psychiatrist!”
“I’m very confused by Greg Jackson’s whole business plan. I don’t give a **** what he thinks. He’s a f*cking weirdo.”
“I don’t think this is a decsion that is going to make Jon Jones popular with…”[insert just about any person who needed to work this event’s name here]
“This is a selfish disgusting decision by Jon Jones”
